For 38 years, George Sandefur has made his living in the underbelly of vegetable oil-soaked state fairs. He started working the rides, graduated to frying food, and last year — with the opening of his exotic-foods trailer — went from just another guy slinging deep-fried goods to the only guy grilling alligator ribs, black-bear burgers, and cheesy maggot sandwiches. And much like $8 beer, the fare turned out to be surprisingly popular. When we caught up with Jungle George, as Sandefur's known around the Midway, he was working at California's Alameda County Fair. He took a break to talk about the 18 exotic meats on his menu, the legal issues that come with selling this stuff, and the real difference between maggots and crickets.

ESQUIRE:How does a guy go from just another corn-dog jockey to being, well, Jungle George?

GEORGE SANDEFUR: Well, I used to sell the regular stuff, and I just wasn't making much money. Last year the California State Fair called me and asked me to do something weird and wild. They suggested alligator. So I tried it for the first time in Phoenix, and it sold out in two hours.

GS: It took a lot of research. I had to look into the legality of selling a lot of these meats in the US.

ESQ:How do people typically react when they see what you're selling?

GS: First they say, "That's disgusting." Then they say, "That can't be legal." Then they try something and take a picture of themselves eating it.

ESQ:I'm kind of a food wuss. What's an easy way in with this stuff?

GS: If you want something like beef, have a yak burger. It's a very sweet, Himalayan beef. The alligator's a good place to start, too. It's like a mix between pork and chicken.

ESQ:What's on the other end of the spectrum, the stuff you need real courage to eat?

GS: You've got to be pretty adventurous to eat the bugs. Especially this sandwich we came up with called the maggot melt. We take two pieces of bread and melt cheese on them, then sprinkle dried maggots all over the cheese. It's really crunchy. One of my guys actually tested out a cricket-melt sandwich the other day, and it didn't work at all.

ESQ:Do people actually buy that?

GS: Amazingly enough, it's been pretty well-received. I think people are getting it just so they can tell people they ate maggots.

ESQ:What else is flying off the shelves right now?

GS: Right now it's alligator and raccoon. Python's right up there in third. When we have African lion, it's always the most popular. But it's $190 a pound right now, so it's not on the menu. Last Sunday we went through 500 pounds of alligators, eight full raccoon carcasses, and about 600 scorpions. Those are the most popular bug.

ESQ:Wait, did you say carcasses?

GS: Yeah, we just throw the whole raccoon carcass on the grill.

ESQ:Wow. Where do you guys get this stuff?

GS: Farms all over the country. Everything comes from the U.S., except for the pythons, which are imported from Vietnam. If you're going to eat something strange, it might as well be fresh.

ESQ:Is there anything you've wanted to get but haven't been able to?

GS: I wanted to sell zebra but it's considered a horse and that's illegal to eat in the U.S. I've looked into stuff like giraffe and elephant, but it's hard to figure out the legality of all that.

ESQ:Okay, let's play a quick game. I'm going to throw out the names of some of the things you serve, and you tell me what it tastes like. Let's start with python.